


we only ever wanted one thing from this

by waveridden



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Good Place (TV) Fusion, F/F, Season: COUNTER/Weight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:22:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21734467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveridden/pseuds/waveridden
Summary: “Aria, you recently passed away after one of your concerts. Right now, you and I are in what you would call the afterlife.” (A Good Place AU.)
Relationships: Jacqui Green/Aria Joie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: 2019 AU December Challenge





	we only ever wanted one thing from this

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the AUcember series, a self-made challenge where I try to write a new AU one-shot every day. You can read all of the AUcember fics in the collection linked above. Title is from Another Place by Bastille.
> 
> If you haven't watched The Good Place, this is really just a riff on the pilot for the show. There are some implicit spoilers for the first season, but nothing explicit or major.
> 
> All my love to Tam, who had the original idea. This is maybe 20% of what we actually talked about for this AU. It goes deep.

The door opens, and there’s a man standing there, handsome and dark-skinned. “Aria,” he says, and smiles. “Come on in.”

Aria isn’t sure what’s going on, because she doesn’t remember coming to this room, or where she is. But years of practice take over, and she gets to her feet and smiles. “Of course.”

She lets the man lead her into what must be his office, a simple and brightly-colored room. There’s some clutter, enough that it looks lived in, but Aria’s first thought is that it feels like a movie set.

“Have a seat,” the man says, and Aria does. He sits at his desk and smiles. “Aria, my name is Ibex. I’m the architect of this neighborhood.”

“What, like the landscaper?” Aria cranes her neck to look out the window. The neighborhood outside is positively idyllic. Everything is sunshiney and pristine, and there are people walking by holding hands and laughing. “Whoa. We’re in a nice part of town.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“I’m assuming I’m still somewhere in LA, right?”

“Not exactly.” Ibex’s smile takes on a sympathetic turn. “Aria, you recently passed away after one of your concerts. Right now, you and I are in what you would call the afterlife.”

“Oh,” Aria says, because there’s not much else to say to something like that. She lifts one of her hands in front of her face. It doesn’t look ghostly or anything, so she lifts her other hand and pokes her palm. Her finger doesn’t go through, so that seems like a good sign. Or maybe a bad sign. She looks up at Ibex, who’s still smiling sympathetically at her. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m afraid I’m sure.”

“So did I make it up top?”

Ibex laughs. “Yes, Aria, you made it up top. You’re in the good place, don’t worry.”

Aria relaxes into her chair. “Okay, good, because this would be a really weird aesthetic for hell.”

“It would, wouldn’t it,” Ibex says musingly. “Well, you’ve arrived in your neighborhood, where you’ll be spending the rest of your days. As the architect, I wanted to be the first person to welcome you, and I’ll be personally showing you around soon.”

“Cool,” Aria says. Something about this seems incredibly weird, but maybe she’s just not used to the way that the place works yet. Of course she feels out of place when everything around her is manicured to hell and back. She’s sure she can find ways to manicure herself to match. That’ll be fun, getting to look like she’s a native person in literal, actual heaven.

“Excellent,” Ibex says. “AuDy?”

“Hello,” says a voice behind Aria. She nearly falls out of her chair turning around in surprise, and there’s a robot standing there. An actual robot.

“Uh, hi,” Aria says. “How did you-”

“I am Automated Dynamics,” says the robot. “You may call me AuDy. I am the physical form of the informational system for this neighborhood. I am here to guide you and answer your questions.”

“All my questions?” She pauses. “How did I end up here? Not that I’m disappointed or anything, but-”

“You earned a total of more than twelve million points,” AuDy says, which explains both everything and nothing.

Aria turns back to Ibex. “Can you tell me what that means?”

“Every action that you take on Earth accumulates points, whether those are positive or negative. Only the people with the highest point totals are able to enter the good place.” Ibex smiles faintly. “AuDy, Aria and I are going to walk through the neighborhood. Can you ensure that her home is prepared for her?”

“Of course,” AuDy says, and then vanishes out of existence. It makes Aria’s ears pop.

Ibex gets to his feet. “Anything you need, you can just call for them, and they’ll be there.” He offers a hand to Aria and helps her to her feet. “Let’s go for a walk.”

#

The neighborhood is full of gourmet popcorn places and people who seem really excited to tell Aria about themselves. It reminds her a lot of Los Angeles, and she’s not sure if that’s a good thing just yet.

But everyone she meets is nice, and Ibex is friendly and informative, answering all of her questions easily. He takes her through the neighborhood and explains things like points and the kinds of torture that famous people are going through in the bad place.

He also explains that Aria can’t swear anymore, which is kind of disappointing. She would’ve hoped that heaven had freedom of speech, or something.

“There is one thing I haven’t mentioned,” Ibex says, towards the end of the tour. They’re on the outskirts of the neighborhood now, moving towards a cute little cottage, and also a massive palatial house. Aria doesn’t know which one they’re going to turn towards, but she thinks she’s okay with either one.

“Is it restaurants where you can get food other than popcorn?” Aria asks jokingly. It’s not a joke, but she doesn’t want Ibex to know that. It’s probably rude to be ungrateful for anything in the good place, even if that thing is limitless popcorn. Aria doesn’t even really like popcorn.

Ibex smiles. “No, we’ll have people opening those up soon. The thing I haven’t mentioned is the existence of soulmates.”

“Of  _ what? _ ”

“Romantic or platonic, these are people who have been matched perfectly, based on personality and life on earth. You have one soulmate, and in order to save on accommodation, she’ll be living with you.” Ibex takes a distinct turn towards the cottage.

Aria lets out a breath. “What’s she like?”

“You’ll have plenty of time to get to know her.” Ibex laughs. “The rest of eternity, in fact.”

The rest of eternity is kind of a daunting thing to consider, but Aria squares her shoulders as they approach the door. “Great,” she says. “Cool! Let’s meet her.”

Ibex opens the door and Aria steps inside. It’s a cozy place, smaller than Aria’s penthouse, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Everything is very sparsely decorated. Tiny kitchen, small living room, pretty big TV.

And there’s a woman standing in the living room with purple hair and the biggest arms Aria has literally ever seen outside of a movie.

“Aria, this is Jacqui Green,” Ibex says from behind her. “Jacqui, this is-”

“Aria Joie,” says Jacqui.

Aria startles. She moves forward to shake Jacqui’s hand - wait, is that weird? If it’s her soulmate, should she go straight for the hug? Jacqui doesn’t look like a hugger, but those arms… “You, uh, you’ve heard of me?”

“You’re kind of famous,” Jacqui points out. “I’ve heard your music. I didn’t realize you’d… be here.”

“I didn’t either.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Ibex says. Aria can hear the door close behind her, but she doesn’t bother turning around.

Jacqui glances over her shoulder as Ibex leaves, then looks back at Aria. “Okay, we’re soulmates, right?”

“Uh, apparently.”

“I’m going to ask you something, and you need to be honest with me.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you think you’re supposed to be here?”

Aria shrugs. “I mean, who can really say who’s supposed to be in heaven? I’m surprised that I’m, like, top-tier, but I tried to do a lot of charity work. Apparently that paid off.”

“Okay,” Jacqui says. “Great. I’m pretty sure I’m not, actually.”

Aria frowns. “You’re not what?”

“Supposed to be here.”

“As in, in this house…”

“As in, the good place at all.” Jacqui frowns. “Is there someone we can ask about this.”

Aria turns around. “AuDy?”

“Hello,” AuDy says.

“What the fork,” Jacqui says, and then, “gosh  _ forking darn it, _ I miss cursing so forking much-”

“Me forking too,” Aria says, and grimaces. It really just doesn’t feel the same. “AuDy, is it possible for someone to end up somewhere by mistake?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Like…” she tilts her head. “Let’s say that two people die at the same time in the same place. And one of them was good, and one of them wasn’t. Can they get mixed up?”

AuDy stares at her for a long second. Aria arches an eyebrow at them, presumably as they think.

“Everyone here is supposed to be here,” AuDy says at last. “Ibex and I have personally confirmed it.”

“Great, thanks, bye,” Aria says. AuDy pops out of existence, and she turns back to Jacqui. “Okay, so what do you want to do about it? And why do you think you shouldn’t be here anyways?”

“I’m not telling you that.”

“I’m your soulmate.”

“Probably not,” Jacqui points out. “I mean, if there’s a mistake and I’m not supposed to be here, I’m probably here instead of your real soulmate.”

Aria makes a face. “Well, we live together, apparently, so you’re as close as I’m getting to a soulmate right now. But if you don’t have any better ideas, I want to meet our mansion neighbors.”

“What, Cassander and Larry?”

“Larry?” Aria repeats. “Like, a full grown adult who goes by the name of Larry?”

Jacqui shakes her head. “He’s some famous philanthropist dude. Lots of charity missions. He seems nice. Cassander is the prince on some tiny island nobody’s heard of, and they’re kind of stuck up.”

“They sound like my kind of people.”

“Yeah, they would.”

Aria frowns. “I don’t know what you mean by that, but I still want to meet our neighbors.”

“You seem awfully okay with me being in the wrong place.”

“What am I supposed to do about it? Tell Ibex and get you sent away? That would be awful, Jacqui, I don’t want to do that to you.”

Jacqui stares at her. Aria raises her eyebrows. “You don’t have a very high opinion of me, do you?”

“I don’t have a high opinion of most celebrities,” Jacqui answers. “But you’re not what I was expecting.”

“Good,” Aria says. “I want to meet our neighbors. You can introduce me. And we’re going to figure out how to deal with this. Deal?”

“Deal,” Jacqui says. The corner of her mouth quirks up, and that feels like a victory for Aria.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have thoughts and feelings about C/W or The Good Place, come say hi @waveridden on both Tumblr and Twitter!


End file.
